It's a mysterious transformation. Start in Old Market Square and walk up Long Row. Walk past the turn-off for the Alley Cafe, past the Dragon pub, to the covered pedestrian walk West End Arcade. Enter the arcade, walk up on the right, and find yourself in ... a Parisian side street.

At least that's the feeling you get if you follow the floridly Art Nouveau sign into Aubrey's Traditional Creperie and take a seat at one of its three two-person tables.

Owner Meg Hale opened the creperie this week, and she didn't shirk on the details. She scoured car boot sales and the Cattle Market auction for the rustic tables and chairs. The two large, round, crepe-specialising grills were imported from Brittany. Copies of the day's Evening Post and the Guardian sat on the counter, ready to be read over a cup of coffee. A 1920s-style women's hat hung, just so, off one corner of a stylish mirror in a corner, above the white brickwork.

"I wanted to go back to tradition," Meg said of her ideas for the mood of the place. "A lot of this stuff we uncovered, like the salt-glazed brickwork here. I wanted to make it simple but old-school as well."

Paris offered inspiration, as it often does. Walking around, seeing the little art nouveau touches and flourishes on, and in buildings, she began to get ideas. "I love the architecture and the colours and everything from the art nouveau period."

It's probably not worth going over the particulars of what was on the chalkboard menu this particular day - save two or three mainstays, that will change just about daily anyway.

The noble crepe, and its buckwheat-flour cousin the galette, are a versatile food, Meg said. "There's so much you can do with them," she said. "You can pretty much put what you like in them as long as the combinations work."

They're also not expensive - the savoury side of the Aubrey's menu checks in at the £3-to-£4 range, with the sweet crepes coming in at less. That does not, however, imply a skimping on ingredients.

Meg worked for several years at Delilah Fine Foods, the award-festooned city centre delicatessen. "That gave me so much experience for food and product knowledge," she said. "I didn't want to lose the connection I had there, so a lot of my produce in here comes from Delilah." That means plenty of local cheeses and meats. Other products come from farther afield. Aubrey's is licensed; Meg will sell cider from Brittany.

Meg hasn't seen much French cider in Britain. It is not, she noted, the same sort of potent beverage you get on these shores.

In Brittany, she said, "you have your galette and you have your little bowl of cider. It's not like scrumpy."

Meg spent a week training in Brittany to prepare for life as a business owner. "I was the only British person there so my French improved quite dramatically that week, ," she said.

"It was very intense, but worth it for the training."